Whether to switch at all
The honest case for keeping what you have, including a copper line, which still applies to plenty of buildings.
Read VoIP vs landline
Springfield, MA
Business VoIP in Springfield, MA
413 covers the whole western end of the state with nothing laid over it, so the number takes one paragraph. The rest of this page is the argument we do not usually lead with: a great many small businesses are sold a phone system they have no use for, and it is worth knowing whether you are one of them before you sign anything.
Disclosure: AldoMedia is a paid affiliate of Unitel Voice. If you sign up through a link on this page we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend what we would set up for our own clients, and we say plainly below who should not buy this.
One code, the whole western end of the state
413 is one of the original 1947 codes and still covers western Massachusetts, from Springfield up through the valley and out to the Berkshires. Nothing has been laid over it, so seven digits still reach locally and anything printed decades ago is still a complete number.
That is unusual in this state. The eastern half has had overlays for years and dials ten digits as a matter of course. Here the code still means something specific, which is west of the state, and everybody in Massachusetts reads it that way.
Keep a 413 number if you hold one. Porting it to a new provider is routine and is on business phone numbers. There is genuinely nothing else to decide about the digits, which is why the rest of this page is about whether to change anything at all.
Who should not buy this
Every page on this site carries a version of this paragraph and it usually sits near the bottom. Here it goes in the middle, because the economy in this part of the state runs heavily on very small businesses, and very small businesses are the ones most often sold something they will never use.
If you are one or two people, your customers reach you on the number you have, and no job has ever been lost because a call went unanswered, then a business phone system solves a problem you do not have. The monthly cost is small and permanent, and the features you are being shown, menus, departments, call queues, analytics, are built for organisations with more people than you have. Keep what you have.
The honest test is not whether the features sound useful. Almost everything sounds useful in a demonstration. The test is whether you can name an occasion in the last year when somebody could not reach you and went elsewhere. If you cannot, the case is not there yet, and a good provider will tell you so.
There is a narrower version worth knowing about too. If your actual problem is that you do not want your mobile number on a van, you do not need a phone system for that. A single business number that forwards to your mobile costs very little and solves exactly that problem, and anybody who tries to sell you a full system to achieve it is overselling.
And who genuinely does
The case changes sharply once more than one person has to be reachable on one published number, because that is the thing an ordinary mobile cannot do. If a caller needs to get whoever is free rather than one specific person, and that currently means either a number that rings out or a person acting as a switchboard, the arithmetic starts to work. Virtual phone system is the shape of it.
It also changes when somebody needs to answer the business line without carrying a second phone, or when you want the number to survive a member of staff leaving. Those are real problems with real costs, and they are the ones this class of product is actually for.
The economy here, advanced manufacturing and precision machining, healthcare, education, insurance and the trades, contains plenty of businesses in both categories. The point is not that one is right, it is that the two look similar from the outside and get sold the same thing.
And if your connection is unreliable, none of this applies yet. Voice is unforgiving about steady timing in a way that email and browsing are not, so a line that seems fine can still be wrong for calls. Test at your busiest hour before moving anything. VoIP vs landline sets out when keeping copper is the right answer.
None of which makes the service local
There is no western Massachusetts phone product. The software is the same one a business in Nevada is sold, it runs a long way from the valley, and the only thing your address decides is the three digits at the front of the number.
How the technology works is on the main business VoIP guide. The eastern half of the state, which is a different economy on more crowded codes, is on business VoIP in Massachusetts. The greeting question, if you get that far, is on auto attendant and extensions.
Read these before you buy anything
None of these are about Springfield. The first two are the ones that will tell you whether you need any of this.
Just a number, not a system
A business number that forwards to your mobile, which is what most one person businesses actually want.
Read about business numbersWhen more than one person answers
The point at which a published number reaching whoever is free starts to be worth paying for.
Read about virtual systemsThe greeting in front
Menus and extensions, and why the shortest one is almost always the right one.
Read about auto attendant
Common questions
Springfield VoIP questions
We are two people and our customers reach us fine. Do we need this?
Almost certainly not. If you cannot name an occasion in the last year when somebody failed to reach you and went elsewhere, the problem this solves is one you do not have, and the monthly cost is permanent. Keep what you have. The case changes when more than one person needs to be reachable on a single published number, because that is the thing an ordinary mobile cannot do.
We just want the business number off our personal mobile. What is the cheapest way?
A single business number that forwards to your mobile. That costs very little, keeps your own number private, and means the business number survives if you change phone or if somebody else takes over answering. You do not need menus, departments or queues to achieve it, and anybody selling you a full system for this is overselling.
Is 413 going to get a second area code?
Nothing has been laid over it and none has been announced. The eastern half of the state has had overlays for years, so the pattern is familiar there: no existing number changes, but every local call needs ten digits afterwards and anything printed with seven becomes incomplete.
Ask us whether you need it
Tell us how many people answer your phone and whether anybody has ever failed to reach you. If the answer is that you are fine as you are, that is what we will tell you.